Gene detection plays an increasingly important role in modern clinical medicine. The first step in gene detection is to extract nucleic acids from a fixed or non-fixed biological sample.
According to conventional chemical methods, cells or tissues are usually first digested with enzymes, and then extracted with organic solvents. The isolated nucleic acids are precipitated by ethanol or isopropanol, collected and concentrated in water. The whole process takes 2-3 days. Especially for paraffin-embedded tissue, there are additional needs for multiple dewaxing in xylene, long-term digestion with high concentration of proteases and the like, resulting in more prominent disadvantage of low time efficiency.
In recent years, a variety of solid-phase nucleic acid extraction kits are developed at home and abroad. Most of such kits are based on the principle of lysing cell to release the nucleic acids, adsorbing the nucleic acids to the surface of certain particles, and then precipitating or eluting. These processes result in relatively shortened nucleic acid extraction time, but are still far from the low-cost, high-efficient, simple target processes.
With the increasing importance of gene detection, nucleic acid extraction technology has not undergone simultaneous innovation and breakthrough compared with the emergence of the new method and technology in gene detection. Availability of qualified nucleic acid has become the key to the success of gene detection, especially for genotyping or diagnosis highly dependent on the paraffin-embedded tissue.